Ann Zimmerman of The Wall Street Journal wrote a fascinating article earlier this week on Target’s efforts to help thwart “Showrooming” when shoppers come into the store to see a product in person only to buy it from a rival later on-line, frequently at a lower price. 

According to the article “Last week, in an urgent letter to vendors, the Minneapolis-based chain suggested that suppliers create special products that would set it apart from competitors and shield it from the price comparisons that have become so easy for shoppers to perform on their computers and smartphones”.  

Hmmm.. As a product developer, I find some special significance and perhaps just a twinge of schadenfreude here – not specifically at Target but over my perception that the big-box retailers were a key enabler and driver of the rush to undifferentiated, unimaginative products in the retail segment.  We consumers were certainly to blame but the increased clout of big-box retailers and their relentless squeeze on margins and unwillingness to take risk or allocate space for niche products contributed to this reality. 

Manufacturers often responded by slashing internal innovation and turning into glorified branding/sourcing firms where generic, undifferentiated products from offshore manufacturers were rebadged, reskinned, repackaged and cost reduced to the point of total homogeneity and mediocrity.  When “true innovation” is defined as having 32 speeds on my blender instead of 24 I think I can predict where this is headed.  Ironically, of all the big-box retailers, it is Target that arguably puts the biggest premium on innovation and design.  Never the less, the squeeze is evident, widespread and apparently painful. 

Of course nothing illegal, immoral or even deplorable here – just the natural churn of a business cycle.  The big-box retailers did a great job of steering us to what we want in a way that left them uniquely positioned to provide it.   And now technology has turned that cycle again but this time the big-box retailer are the ones being left in the lurch. 

 I don’t know for sure but I’m guessing the future doesn’t bode well for Target’s strategy here. Smart phones and tablets are the latest extension to the limitless pool of internet knowledge and frictionless commerce, giving us unprecedented and seamless access to both information and channels of distribution.  That particular genie is out of that particular bottle.  Asking suppliers to gen up “special products” to help Target differentiate themselves from Amazon might have them wondering “what have you done for me lately?.”  Or at least “why”? 

As a further irony, I might envision a future where brick-and-mortar retailers survive and indeed thrive by refocusing on a boutique approach to niche products and elevating the shopping “experience” – ironic because these were exactly the retail traits crushed by the big box revolution.  If there’s any doubt how we think things are headed, a quick comparison of the stock prices of Amazon and Target is pretty telling.  Might be time for a little innovation around the business model. 

So we had one of our famous brown-bag lunch-and-learn sessions today – sort of group training / design philosophy / technical-chops-throw-down all rolled into one.  Today’s topic was a fairly esoteric design technique known as curvature continuous surfaces.  I know… I can hear the yawns.  Curvature Continuous surfacing is a fairly sophisticated computer modeling technique used for creating highly stylized product forms and shapes on certain products– particularly ones that are highly reflective or feature flowing lines.  Think shiny car bodies on a wet road under streetlights and you’ll get the picture.

Anyway, I found myself reflecting on a few things (no pun intended).  The first was the range of employees and backgrounds that were enthusiastically and actively participating in our session.   It used to be that the subject of highly esoteric computer modeling skills was relegated to the land of a select group of designers and perhaps computer geeks.  If anything one could expect some fairly traditional battle lines to be drawn – industrial designers arguing that engineers didn’t understand or appreciate the subtleties of form and aesthetics.  Engineers complaining about designers who obsessed over picayune and meaningless details.  Blah blah blah blah…

Rather, at today’s session there were product designers of all stripes – industrial designers, engineers, mechanical designers, even members of our prototyping staff passionately advocating for the value of highly sophisticated exterior form development.   The relative merits of Honda cars and Apple’s I-Pod form were contrasted and products we’d designed and engineered were critiqued.   I was once again proud and impressed by the nuanced eye today’s product development specialist brings to their craft… and left with a couple of impression… First, a continued respect and realization for the erosion of typical barriers and stereotypes in product development.  We’ve done a lot of talking and work about trans-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary skill sets and I really see that coming to life.  I was also struck by the level of design prowess and sophistication being brought to a remarkable range of products.   Call it the ipodification of our products but as consumers we have a level of expectation  for finesse, refinement and elegance that continues to test the mettle of those who practice design as their craft.  I, for one, find this exhilarating to be around.

Oh, and if you care about curvature continuous surfacing and want a copy of our notes from the session just drop me a line.